“Riot? Fiddle dee dee.” I dance around the sheriff’s motorcycle. “This isn’t a riot. It’s a flash mob. It’s an organic get-together, naturally coalescing like flocks of orange butterflies swarming to the spring super bloom.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbles. “They are not butterflies, but rioters, and you organized this.”
“No one controls the flash mob,” I argue. “It’s like a roving meme of participants. Something triggers them, and they magically appear to perform art or dance, or in this case, chase ghosts.”
“And you’re telling me you had nothing to do with this congregation?” He strides toward the entrance of my hotel with me hot on his tail. “What about the feeds, streams, and stuff online?”
“I had no idea my little meme would be reposted by so many.” I roll my eyes innocently. “Maybe it’s the fact that the famous ghost hunter, Evan Graves, is here at Hallowed Haunts. He’s the one putting Colson’s Corner on the map.”
Todd ignores me, cupping his hands at the crowd giggling and running up and down the stairway. “Attention, everyone. For your own safety, please exit the premises. Hallowed Haunts is not open for business.”
He may as well be spitting in the wind. No one pays him any mind, other than to say, “Sheriff, can you take a picture of us?”
“There’s a ghost behind the bar, quick. Take a picture.”
“Picture, picture?”
“Hold the selfie stick, Sheriff.”
Since I’m hanging on to Todd’s beefy arm, my towering blond beehive, along with my painted face, including a big, black stick-on beauty mark is in every picture.
Ghostly mists rise from behind the bar and underneath the stairway, thanks to the dry ice Evan put in place. Using a holographic projector, he flits moving white ghosts around the semi-darkened room.
Everyone’s delighted except for Todd, and he’s relegated to shouting at the children to put out their sparklers.
“You’re a big meanie,” a little girl dressed as a pumpkin says. “A big mean sheriff of Naughty-ham.”
“Oh, Jessie!” I whip around and give Todd’s “niece” a high five. “Want to take a picture with the Sheriff of Naughty-ham?”
She beams and whips her head up and down, bouncing her dark, curly hair. “Only if he’s a ghost.”
“He doesn’t look very ghostly to me,” a sardonic voice behind me sneers. It’s Evan, and he’s carrying a pair of bellows.
“What are you doing with that?” Todd asks, but the answer puffs all over him as Evan launches billows of cornstarch, covering the hulking man with a cloud of white powder.
Todd’s hand goes to his service revolver, but I detach his fingers, one by one. “Chill. It’s cornstarch, you ghostly lawman, you.”
“Yay! Uncle Todd’s a ghost!” Jessie claps her orange-gloved hands and jumps up and down.
“Yes, Sheriff Todd’s a big mean ghost now. Let’s get a selfie,” I prompt Jessie, because she’s not supposed to know she’s Todd’s sister’s daughter. It’s part of the adoption agreement to keep it from her until she’s eighteen.
Jessie hugs Todd’s legs, leaving imprints in the cornstarch, and who can resist the little sweetheart? Certainly not a big huggy bear man like Todd.
He hefts her up on his shoulders, the little pumpkin on the ghostly sheriff, and both of them mug and grin for the circle of cameras.
The ice is broken, and Todd keeps Jessie on his shoulders as they walk around the grounds of my haunted hotel. She points things out from her perch high up and kicks her booted feet excitedly when I take both of them on a tour.
By the time we return Jessie to her parents, who were busy passing out gospel tracts and street preaching, the crowd had melted away as magically as they’d appeared.
Todd straddles his motorcycle. “How did they know to leave?”
“Told you, it’s a flash mob, like a flash in a pan.” I ruck up my skirts and climb over the passenger seat behind him, uninvited. “Now, are you taking me to the station to arrest me for unlawful gathering without a permit?”
He says nothing when I wrap my arms around his hard girth. The motorcycle rumbles alive, and we zoom off into the darkness.
~ Todd ~
I’m sorely disappointed with myself for letting this crowd situation get out of hand, but right now, I have a bigger problem.
Tami King has her arms around my waist and her boobs pressed to my back. Her thighs cradle my hips, and her face is glued to the back of my head.
She’s also riding without a helmet, but so am I because someone stole it while I was getting plastered by cornstarch.
I should drop Tami off at her family home. It’s a huge Victorian mansion built in 1861 on a hill just north of the town square and two shakes from where we are now. But I can’t let the people strolling in the square see me and her riding on my service motorcycle without helmets.
Besides, the night is crisply cool, and the first quarter moon rising above the redwoods means it’ll be a full moon come Halloween.
Tami’s proposed hotel is across Sandman’s Creek from the respectable side of town where the police station, post office, general store, and diner are located. The police station used to be the saloon, but when the town expanded full of miners, the Sixty Miners Saloon was established next to the Bee Sting Bordello where the women wearing “gold belts” rolled gold out of the miners’ pockets.
Hangman’s Bridge is the shortest route between the two sides, but instead of cutting across it, I go south, parallel to the creek and wind through the curving road beneath the towering trees.
I’m not ready to face the woman whose warmth is draped against my back, and for the moment, I can let my spirits run free like the wind whipping through my hair. Out here on these backroads, I’m no longer the sheriff. I don’t have to be the do-gooder, the guy in control, and the authority of the law.
I’m a wild man, and I’m free.
The lush woman’s arms tighten around me when I lean into a curve around the river’s bend. I let the gravel swish before gunning the engine of the powerful bike out of the curve to let it go full throttle on the straightaway.
I feel the intake of her breath and the tension of her rapid heartbeat. Her beehive hair has fallen down, and her long blond hair must be streaming like a shimmering river of gold. I’m betting her cheeks are pink with windburn, and her skirts are flying up her thighs.
She’s quiet, for once, and it makes me feel even bigger—like she’s in awe of me.
Sure, she flirts with everyone, and she dates no one—at least no one in town. All bets are off with those city boys she went to college with, although I can’t picture our mountain princess with any of those latte-sipping soy boys with no hair on their soft chests.
My jaw tightens at how easily she got that flash mob going, including the dandy Evan Graves with the tiny patch of fuzz below his lower lip, double diamond earrings, and a shaved head pale as Casper’s.
I swerve my bike and brake, turning into the parking lot at a trailhead leading into the Tahoe National Forest.
Flipping down the kickstand, I turn off the bike and let the sounds of the forest seep into my veins. The river slides peacefully below us, and the steady chirps of night bugs keep time with my swishing pulse. Moonlight filters through the canopy of pines, firs, and cedars, and the pathway under our feet is spongy with fallen leaves.
I’m holding the woman’s hand, grasping her like a bird inside my paw, gentle and precious, firm, but not too hard. Out here, I don’t have to hide who I am.
Although, I can never be sure the many eyes in the forest aren’t watching. Hopefully friendly eyes, or at least protective eyes.
The woman walks close to me, and it feels so natural and right. We step through an archway of bushes and branches, trailing with vines, and emerge into an enclosed cathedral-like circle of tall, straight trees. The night sky is only visible by craning our faces upward.
A shiver vibrates through the
woman’s bounteous body as she raises her smooth, pale face and glances up at the quarter moon. The bluish light bathes her with an otherworldly glow, and her sapphire-colored eyes shine with the reflected orbs. The pink lips open, and her tongue flickers on the edges. She’s more beautiful than the goddesses and fairies my brother Scott dreams about, and unlike the creatures he chases in the woods, the ones he can never find, this fair-haired maiden is solid and hot, real flesh and blood.
My hand cups her blushing cheek, and out here, in the primeval wilderness, I’m the only man to her womanhood.
Her arms encircle my neck. Her lips part, and her eyes glaze over, inviting the same way she does in my most private and wettest dreams.
I’ve waited all my life for this forbidden fruit, and I’m risking everything of hers to take it. But the energy thrumming through our bodies, the tension and heightened sensation of her riding against my back, and the yearning of my suppressed desire crash through my vaunted self-control.
The kiss is explosive.
Hungry.
Grasping.
Our mouths join, lock and key, a perfect fit.
Our lips meld together, alternately pursing and relaxing. Our tongues, loosened from their moorings, explore and dip, tasting and consuming. It’s sweet; it’s wet; it’s hot, and it’s dangerously delicious.
The pent-up friction between us combusts, flowering full bloom, and before I know it, our hands are busy sneaking underneath clothing. Her palms are flat against my chest and shoulders, moving down my torso, and my palms and fingers are filled with the pendulous globes of her breasts.
We stagger and lean against a thick tree trunk, barely coming up for air. I breathe in her short, hot moans, and she takes in the grinding of my thick boner against her fleshy hips.
But the night is too cold, and the pine needles too prickly, and I have to end this charade before it goes too far. I gird up my strength, even as I keep kissing her, not wanting to ever let go.
Yet, I have to. I promised to leave her be. I can’t let her know what I’d be tempted to do. I am, after all, the man to uphold the law.
“Todd,” she whispers when she feels me drawing back. “Don’t stop. This. Is. Us. This is what I’ve always wanted.”
Her words break the spell, and I step away from her abruptly—all my senses back intact. “This can’t go further, and you can’t let anyone know this happened.”
“Why?” The blue orbs of her eyes flash like the fury of a gas jet.
“It’s not you.” I cross my arms to keep her from throwing herself at me. “I’m not allowed to be with you.”
“Who’s not allowing it?”
It’s not who, but what—my principles. I can’t let her family corrupt me the way they did my predecessor.
“That I can’t say.” I glance around at the trees standing guard around us. “But if you want me to keep my position in town, you’ll have to not let anyone know.”
“I can keep a secret.” She licks her lips enticingly. “I’m really good at it. If we meet here or anywhere else, trust me. No one has to know.”
“That’s tempting, but no cigar. I have a job to do and a town to keep safe. You, on the other hand, are lawless and never follow the rules.”
She raises her hands, crossed at the wrists. “Then arrest me and abuse me all you want in your jail.”
I can’t help it.
I take her hands and kiss both of them, rubbing them against my face. I want her so much, but I can’t have her.
“Why are you holding back?” she asks when I let her go.
“I don’t want you to be stuck with a crooked cop.” My excuse sounds lame even to myself—but I know the subtle pressure to uphold the King family’s position—it goes along with the bank and the town’s finances.
She sucks in a gasp and points at me. “No way. You’re too straight of an arrow. I’m the one who’s lawless and breaking rules all the time. Guess that’s bad for your goody-two-shoes reputation.”
“You do understand, then.” I grab her with both hands and tug her toward me. “I have to uphold the law and keep the town safe, and you’re not cooperating.”
She shoves me hard. “You’re backwards. Clannish. Suspicious and conservative. If we want this town to grow, we have to take risks.”
“Booms are always followed by busts. The valleys are always deeper than the brief peaks, and we have enough problems without borrowing more.”
Her chest heaves, and she huffs with her dainty fists clenched. “It’s better to risk it all and lose everything than to sit on your rocking chair and watch the world go by.”
“Then risk this.” I lunge at her and bend her back, dipping her.
She sighs, opening herself to me, and I kiss the living nightlights out of her, leaving her compliant and speechless.
Five
~ Tami ~
I meet my bestie, Linx Colson, at her sister’s diner for breakfast, like I always do. She’s still recovering from the serious burns she suffered when she saved Jessie Patterson and her puppy from a fire set by the arsonist Todd and Shane weren’t able to catch.
Yes, she’s Jessie’s biological mom, but it’s ancient history why she had to give her up. Suffice it to say, Jessie’s a happy kid with a set of stable, loving parents and two godparents, as well as a stable of virtual aunts, uncles, and grandparents on both sides.
“Hey, Tami!” Linx raises both her bandaged hands. Even though her skin is healed, it’s still brittle and chapped, prone to breakdown from rubbing and pressure. It’s been hard for her to take care of her dogs, because she can’t wash her hands all the time, but due to all the publicity she received from the fire, saving the puppy, and her barn burning down, donations have flooded in, and she’s been able to hire workers to feed and clean up after the dogs. Adoptions have also been booming, and people are actually making a trip up the mountain just to visit Mountain Dog Rescue and help with the rebuilding of the barn which serves as a kennel.
This could prove to be a boon for the new Gold Rush developments starting with my hotel. I have big visions of bringing back an important part of our history while modernizing and using technology to build a thriving business community able to provide good jobs and livelihoods to our mountain folk.
Like all of the Colsons, Linx has dark-brown hair and is olive-complexioned. Her family roots run deep in these parts, starting before the first Colonel Colson appeared. Many of the initial mine workers were Native American Miwoks, followed by Chileans, Mexicans, Chinese, and Peruvians. In the beginning, miners from all over the world scoured the rivers and streambeds for easy pickings, but after the initial boom, laws and confiscatory taxes, as well as violence served to drive out those who were deemed to be foreigners—unless they assimilated or blended into the local population like Linx’s ancestors did.
“Linx, darling.” I swivel between the tables and light on her with an air hug. “Missed you last night.”
She covers her frown well with a casual shrug. Like Todd, Linx is one of the conservative ones who believe in keeping the town small and remote. She doesn’t particularly like newcomers, even though she welcomes dog lovers—but she’s always railing against the folks staying at the campgrounds. She believes they purposely abandon unwanted pets at the end of summer.
“You missed quite a show,” I say in a teasing voice. “Especially from your brother, Todd.”
“Then tell me everything,” Linx says, smiling widely as she accepts a cup of coffee from her sister, Joey, who runs the diner. “I saw some of the pictures on social media. Are you making Todd as uncomfortable as he looks?”
I wiggle my shoulders as I put a packet of sugar into my coffee, feeling spirited because the evening was a whopping success. Not only did Todd not stop the festivities, he was hailed a hero by the partygoers and dragged around the hotel posing in front of every half-finished exhibit—tales from the crypt, the mummy, the half-open coffin with the dry ice inside, and many more.
Too bad I can�
��t tell her what happened afterwards, but Todd told me to trust him—that he has reasons and it has nothing to do with me. Seems there’s a criminal investigation that would be compromised if he was seen dating anyone local. I’m betting it has to do with the kidnappings of the dog and little Jessie this summer, but he wouldn’t explain or even give me a hint.
“Your Jessie’s very persuasive.” I giggle and flip my long hair over my shoulders. “Todd was yelling at everyone to leave when Jessie called him the big mean Sheriff of Naughty-Ham.”
Linx covers her mouth and chuckles. “She’s got a lot of spunk. Was she at all fearful of the ghosts?”
I know of Jessie’s struggles with nightmares after the firestorm, but she seems to have bounced back and is as friendly as ever.
“Not when she’s riding on the big sheriff’s shoulders. She called him Uncle Todd, and I had to correct her. Do you think someone told her?”
Linx appears amused as she sips her coffee. “She’s a perceptive kid. I didn’t say anything, but while she’s being cute, there’s a super sharp brain ticking away in there.”
“Maybe she’s figured it out already, but keeps her parents fooled. I hope this won’t cause problems when she gets older.”
“She’ll be fine. We Colsons tend to be a secretive lot, and she’ll fit right in.” Linx yawns, unconcerned.
Wish I can spill about my first kiss with Todd, but then again, she is Todd’s sister, and it might be strange to hear about her brother in that way.
Besides, I’ve talked Linx’s ear off about never getting to first base with Todd. Now that I’m in, my loyalties are with Todd and keeping our little secret, which I hope will grow bigger and bigger and bigger.
We order our usual breakfast. I get yogurt with fruit because I’m always watching my weight, but active Linx Colson, a former firefighter, gets to wolf down a stack of pancakes with syrup and sunny-side up eggs.
“Why are you smiling so secret like?” Linx asks. “Aren’t you going to tell me how you got Todd to approve of your ghost hunt?”
All You Want Page 3
